Startsida
Module 3: How are you?
  Part 1 The body 3 How do you do it? 5 Grammar 7 Extra  
  2 A meeting with the medical service 4 Facts 6 Tasks 8 What have you learned?  
 
Exercise
Exercise 2 Exercise 3 Exercise 4                      
 
 
 

 
The Republic of Ireland 1
Read and listen to the text. Use a dictionary if there are words you don't understand.
 

From 1801 to 1922 the whole of Ireland was part of Great Britain. In the middle of the 1800’s there was a great famine in Ireland. Many people starved to death and about one million people left the country. They emigrated to the United States of America. The people who stayed were not happy about the union with the English.

In 1922, 26 of the Irish counties left Great Britain and became The Irish Free State. From 1949 we know the country as The Republic of Ireland. The six remaining Irish counties became Northern Ireland, still a part of Great Britain.

The creation of The Republic of Ireland was not easy. There was for example a civil war where a lot of people were killed and the internal conflicts have continued up till today. In the 1920’s a group called the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, was founded. They have been fighting against the English and the Protestants in Northern Ireland ever since because they want a free, united Ireland. The people of Northern Ireland who want to belong to Great Britain are called unionists.

Today, 2006, the IRA has promised to stop the fighting so right now the whole of Ireland has peace.